Golden State Honors 17 Outstanding Projects
AIACC bestows ’06 Design Awards

Summary: The AIA California Council (AIACC) announced the recipients of its 2006 Design Awards on June 22. From nearly 330 entrants, the jury selected 17 entries for recognition: five Honor Awards and 12 Merit Awards. Open to architects licensed in California, the project locations range from Pasadena to Pittsburgh to London. The jury for the 2006 Design Awards was composed of Robert Campbell, FAIA; Laura Hartman, AIA; George Nikolajevich, FAIA; Susan Rodriguez, FAIA; and Michael Ross, FAIA. Founded in 1944, the AIACC is the largest component of the AIA.

Honor Awards

Project: UC Berkeley Residence Hall Unites I + II Infill Student Housing, Berkeley, Calif.
Architect: Esherick, Homsey, Dodge, & Davis (EHDD) Architecture
Description: One block from the UC Berkeley campus, the project is set in a residential neighborhood with single-family homes and low density apartment buildings. In the early 1960s, the university built eight multistory dormitory towers configured in a pinwheel facing away from the street, leaving no connections to the sidewalks and street life. To remedy this problem, the architect increased the housing density and created more usable open space for students. The design also incorporated a multi-tiered central plaza situated on the roof of the student services building. The new buildings are energy efficient and provide 884 students and faculty a built-up site within walking distance to campus.
Jury Comments: This is a great collage in subtle colors. [It] completes the block in rationality with vitality and playfulness, creating a nice backdrop [and] bringing the whole block together. This is great housing here.
photo: © Kevin Matthews

Project: Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh
Architect: Koning Eizenberg Architecture
Description: The design of this museum was inspired by a Chinese proverb that instructs parents to give their children two things: roots and wings. The architect expanded the museum from its home in an old Post Office building (1987) into the vacant Buhl Planetarium (1930), linking the two landmarks with a three-story steel and glass structure. The addition features a framed veranda entry with a fluttering lantern structure above, creating new space for interactive exhibits based on the museum’s philosophy of “Play with real stuff.” The lantern, encased in a shade with thousands of 5-inch translucent panels, was designed in collaboration with an environmental artist. At night, the building itself becomes an illuminated lantern. Incorporating many sustainable design features, this project is the first LEED™-certified (Silver rated) children’s museum in the country.
Jury Comments: This building glows. It makes a wonderful interior space opening up the sky and, in effect, floats. It adds lightness and delicacy in opposition to two turn-of-the-century dome buildings.
Photo © Albert Vercerka

Project: Art Center College of Design, South Campus, Pasadena, Calif.
Architect: Daly Genik
Description: The Art Center College of Design is one of the top design schools in the U.S. The campus complex was constructed in the 1940s to house a massive research wind tunnel. As a result, these linked buildings had few windows and large, uneven, dark spaces. One of the challenges in designing this new space was to create openings for light to enter the deepest parts of the building. The architect brought in light two ways: via a series of large skylights on the roof and through selective cuts on the pedestrian side of the building to create a new public face. In cutting away the deck of the roof, the concrete beam system had to stay intact while lighting the roof. The new openings were surrounded by a cast concrete curb to distribute the load of the skylight evenly to the roof surface. This project is one of the first LEED-certified buildings in Pasadena.
Jury Comments: This renovation of an old barn building creates a skyline that is very complex. It is very inventive as the roof extends outside the building. It is a beautiful, magical play on light during the day inside and at night on the outside.
Photo © Nick Lehoux

Project: University of California, Merced-Central Plant, Merced, Calif.
Architect: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP
Description: Part of the first phase of a new university campus, this complex provides power for the university’s buildings and plays a key role in achieving sustainable design goals. The plant’s design reflects the Central Valley literally and figuratively. The exterior walls are sheathed in an outer layer of corrugated metal panes similar to the grain silos, farm sheds, and freight cars found in the valley. The finish of the stainless steel panels captures and reflects the Central Valley summer sun while a thin band of channel glass wraps the building’s base to allow light within. The plant’s functions require many of the building’s large spaces to be enclosed by heavy opaque walls, providing acoustic separation from the surrounding academic buildings. Other parts of the building are dramatically exposed through translucent walls, letting the building function both as a living laboratory and a luminous symbol of the university’s commitment to sustainability.
Jury Comments: This is a powerful presence on the landscape. [It is] a formal statement that is very handsome. This project really stands out in the entries. Beautifully done. Very nice.
Photo © Tim Griffith

Project: Mother, London, England
Architect: Clive Wilkinson Architects
Description: In six years, this advertising agency grew from a six-person boutique to Britain’s top ad agency. Where before there were no space privileges and employees worked around a single large work table, now it’s a 14,000-square-foot open area. The architect proposed a new concrete staircase the width of a small road cutting through the building to connect the floors of this three-story building. The14-foot-wide staircase turned the agency’s cast-in-place concrete work table into perhaps the world’s largest table at 250 feet long, with a maximum capacity of 200 people.
Jury Comments: This is clever rethinking of the work place with bold moves. The way it is documented we can really tell they put a lot of thought into this plan. We were all really taken by this project and like it a lot.
Photo © Adrian Wilson

Merit Awards

Project: The Plaza Apartments, San Francisco
Architect: Leddy Maytum Stacy Architects & Paulett Taggart Architects in Association

Project: Lehrer Architects Studio, Los Angeles
Architect: Michael B. Lehrer, FAIA, Lehrer Architects

Project: Vacation Residence, Sea Ranch, Calif.
Architect: Turnbull Griffin Haesloop

Project: Nissan Design America, La Jolla, Calif.
Architect: Luce et Studio Architects

Project: Cannery Lofts, Newport Beach, Calif.
Architect: TannerHecht Architecture

Project: Engineering 2—University of California, Santa Cruz
Architect: CO Architects

Project: 1532 House, San Francisco
Architect: Fougeron Architecture

Project: Palm Springs Modern Experiment, Palm Springs, Calif.
Architect: DesignARC

Project: Restoration of the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, Sacramento, Calif.
Architect: Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners LLP

Project: Orchard House, Sebastopol, Calif.
Architect: Anderson Anderson Architecture

Project: The Bay School of San Francisco
Architect: Leddy Maytum Stacy Architects

Project: The Gamble House Conservation Project, Pasadena, Calif.
Architect: Kelly Sutherlin McLeod Architecture, Inc.